Mobil Exploration & Producing U.S. Inc.

About Mobil Exploration & Producing U.S. Inc.

It's not necessarily the oil standard, but Exxon Mobil is one of the world's largest integrated oil companies (with Royal Dutch Shell and BP) engaging in oil and gas exploration, production, supply, transportation, and marketing. It has proved reserves of 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent and refinery capacity of 4.9 million barrels per day. The corporation has 20 refineries spread across 14 countries, and operates some 100 major exploration projects worldwide. Exxon Mobil supplies refined products to more than 19,000 global gas stations and is a major petrochemical producer. In 2017 Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson resigned to accept the US government position of Secretary of State.

Operations

Exxon Mobil’s primary business is the exploration of fuel and the production of fuel and petrochemical products. Each day it produces some 4.0 million barrels and refines more than 4.2 million barrels of oil equivalents. With its Upstream segment it explores, produces, transports, and sells crude oil and natural gas, generating about 10% of total revenue. The Downstream segment manufactures, transports, and sells petroleum products, accounting for roughly 80% of revenue. Its Exxon Mobil Chemical segment develops and sells petrochemicals (including ethylene, propylene, and their derivatives, which make up the base of most other petrochemicals and plastics), and generates about 10% of revenue. The firm takes part in numerous joint and equity ventures.

In addition to its conventional exploration, production, and refining activities, Exxon Mobil holds 69.6% of Imperial Oil, which owns 25% of the Syncrude joint venture to extract crude bitumen from Alberta's oil sands and upgrade it into a synthetic crude oil. Due to low oil prices, in 2016 the company could no longer qualify this venture’s expected 3.5 billion barrels of oil as proved reserves.

Geographic Reach

Irving, TX-based Exxon Mobil owns assets in over 100 countries and sells products in virtually all corners of the globe. The US is home to roughly 40% of its long-lived assets, with Canada (16%), Australia (6%), and Nigeria (5%) holding the largest non-US amounts.

Revenue from the US accounts for roughly one third of the firm’s total, a proportion that has dwindled in recent years. Other significant revenue-generating locales include Canada (9%), the UK (8%), and Italy, Belgium, and France (each about 5%).

Exxon Mobil’s revenue declined significantly in recent years, falling more than 50% between 2012 and 2016, due largely to a hefty drop in oil prices that began in 2014. Net income also fell from a high of nearly $45 billion in 2012 to under $10 billion in 2016.

In 2016, revenue dropped 16% to $226 billion (compared to $269 billion in 2015). The majority of the downturn comes from the Downstream segment, which generated $35 billion less revenue in 2016.

Net income dropped in half in 2016, to $7.8 billion, from 2015’s $16.2 billion. The fall included a nearly $7 billion decline in the Upstream segment due to lower revenue and a $2 billion asset impairment charge, along with a $2.3 billion drop in Downstream income attributed to weaker refining margins partially offset by better product volume and a more profitable product mix. The Chemical segment contributed a $200 million increase in earnings arising from stronger margins.

Cash and cash equivalents changed by only $48 million between 2015 and 2016. The firm generated $22.0 billion from operating activities, and offset that gain with a $12.4 billion use of cash due to investing activities and a $9.3 billion use for financing activities.

Strategy

The precipitous price drop in 2014, and the ensuing protracted low price environment of oil and natural gas has forced Exxon Mobil to scrutinize its investment opportunities for alignment with lower revenues and tighter margins. That investment, in the form of capital expenditures (CAPEX), indicates that its strategic objectives include an Upstream focus on near-term production increases (or replenishment of depleted resources), a Downstream focus on improvements to refinery capacity and performance, and a Chemical segment emphasis on expansion of capacity.

Of Exxon’s $19.3 billion of CAPEX in 2016 (down from $31.0 billion in 2015), $14.5 billion went to Upstream projects to locate and produce oil in Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia, along with an expansion of US onshore drilling efforts. These efforts brought the percentage of proved developed reserves to 69% of proved reserves at year-end, in-line with the previous ten years.

The Downstream segment invested $2.5 billion of CAPEX in refineries (Antwerp, Belgium and Rotterdam, Netherlands), in lubricants (doubled the capacity of its Taicang, China plant), and in a newly commissioned aviation-lubricants project in Port Allen, Louisiana.

The Chemical segment spent $2.2 billion of CAPEX in 2016, for expansion at Baytown and Mont Belview, TX facilities (ethane cracker and polyethylene production). It also invested money to create new, or expand existing, capacity in Saudi Arabia, Wales, UK, and Singapore.

In 2017, the company expects to spend $22 billion of CAPEX, with the majority going to Upstream projects and lesser amounts in Downstream and Chemical segments. Upstream will see most investment in long-cycle projects (those whose positive cash flow is expected more than three years out) in Hebron, Upper Zakum, Odoptu, Tengiz, and Liza, along with some short-cycle projects in US shales operations at the Permian and Bakken basins. Downstream investment is targeted for Antwerp (coker), Rotterdam (hydrocracker), Singapore, and the US-based Wolverine pipeline. The Chemical segment will see funds invested in its Beaumont polyethylene facility, Baytown’s olefins production facility, and Singapore’s specialty products plant.

Further investments in the range of $70 billion to $80 billion are expected between 2018 and 2020, with much of it targeted for the same Upstream projects receiving funds in 2017.

Mergers and Acquisitions

In June 2018, ExxonMobil announced the purchase of half of Equinor’s interest in the BM-S-8 block offshore Brazil. This block contains much of the 2 billion barrel Carcara oil field, where exploration commenced in April of 2018 and production may commence as soon as 2022.
The new interest purchase brings ExxonMobil’s total to 36.5%, same as Equinor. This build’s on ExxonMobil’s impressive portfolio of interest in 24 blocks offshore Brazil, totaling more than 2.1 million net acres.

In a move to more than double its output from the prolific Permian Basin In West Texas, in 2017 Exxon Mobil agreed to buy companies owned by the Bass family of Fort Worth in a deal worth up to $6.6 billion. The targeted companies hold 275,000 acres of leasehold land that produce more than 18,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day.

To boost its gas assets in Papua New Guinea, in 2016 the company bid $2.5 billion to acquire InterOil, besting TOTAL's offer.